


countdown

by thespacenico



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bombs, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Keith is Lance's Confidence, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 14:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18874747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespacenico/pseuds/thespacenico
Summary: “Trust your instincts,” Keith interrupts, twisting the blade in his hand restlessly. “They’re always right.”Lance scoffs. “Are they?”“Yes,” Keith insists, exasperated. “How do you think we got this far?”“Luck?”“I’m cutting the black one,” Keith announces, leaning forward to do exactly that.“Wait!” Lance’s hand shoots back out to clutch at Keith’s arm, his fingers digging almost painfully against his armor. “Are you sure?”Keith turns his head just enough to lock eyes with Lance, tightening his grip on the hilt of his blade. “I’m sure if you’re sure.”





	countdown

**Author's Note:**

> i originally posted this as a chapter under [snapshots](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152270/chapters/42924563), but it seems to be a fav (and it is also a fav of mine askldfjdl) so i decided to post it separately!! (also because i might write a follow-up chapter in the future uwu)

The only explanation for how Keith and Lance found themselves in their current situation, is that the universe really has it out for them.

More specifically, they’re parked on a foreign planet, with no means of outside communication, in a room with a ticking bomb that in two doboshes is going to explode and wipe out half of the planet’s population, Lance and Keith included.

Also, they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.

“It just had to be us,” Lance grumbles, crouched down beside Keith and jabbing at the schematics displayed by his gauntlet. “We just  _had_ to be the ones who got stuck on a planet awaiting impending doom—and of course it had to be a bomb, and  _of course_ we had to be the ones who got stuck with it instead of someone like Hunk or Pidge, or even Coran—”

“Lance,” Keith interrupts, jaw clenched as he hunches over the jumbled mess of strange wires and devices, each one looking even more alien than the last as his eyes sweep over them. “Stop complaining about impending doom and help me figure out how to  _stop_ said impending doom.”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you!” Lance cries, shoving the display into his face. “None of this makes any sense!”

Keith scowls, shoving his arm away. “Then make it make sense!”

_“That doesn’t even make any sense!”_

_“Lance,”_ Keith groans exasperatedly. Another tick goes by. Keith hates ticks, now that he thinks about it. They’re literally just a slow-motion version of seconds and he  _really_ doesn’t appreciate them right now when they’re making  _him_ feel like  _he’s_ moving in slow-motion.

“Well—Keith, I’m trying, okay?” Keith looks up when Lance’s voice wavers a little, startled by the sudden lapse in his usual confident, self-assured veneer. His expression is pinched, eyes darting nervously around the visual display. “This isn’t my thing, I don’t—I have no idea what I’m doing here.”

Keith doesn’t like the way he keeps saying  _I._ As if any part of this scenario is his fault, and his fault only. It’s not like either of them had been expecting to have their lives so directly threatened today.

One hundred thirty ticks. One hundred twenty-nine.

Keith shuts his eyes and lets out a breath. “Alright, look. We’re both scared and frustrated, and—okay, so maybe we don’t have the same expertise that Hunk and Pidge do, but at least we have each other.” His heart skips a beat or two when he opens his eyes to see Lance staring at him, looking a little wide-eyed and—yeah, a little scared. He clears his throat. “We’ll figure this out.”

Lance licks his lip, inhaling deeply and giving a short nod before he exhales. “Okay. Okay, yeah. We can do this.” His gaze returns to the display, brow set with a new determination as he pinches the screen to get a better look. “I think I remember some stuff from when they offered a training session with the bomb squad at the Garrison.”

“Good,” Keith nods. “Just tell me what to do.”

_One hundred eight ticks._

Lance chews on his lip as he navigates the schematics, tapping the screen to enlarge one portion. “Okay, uh—there should be a green wire connected to a black box, behind that bundle of red wires.”

Keith locates said green wire, careful not to touch anything as he searches. “Got it.”

“I think you can cut that one.”

Keith glances over at him, blade held at the ready. “You’re sure?”

Lance’s face twists into something uncertain, nose wrinkled slightly and mouth dipping into a frown. “I mean—maybe? I just—Keith, I just don’t know—”

“Lance.” Lance winces, but his eyes flick over to Keith, who levels him with the most sincere gaze he can manage. “I trust you. If you think I should cut it, I’ll cut it. Just say the word.”

_One hundred ticks._

Something flickers briefly across Lance’s face, followed by the set of his jaw and one more look over the schematics. He takes a deep breath. “Do it.”

He watches apprehensively as Keith delicately positions the tip of his blade against the specified wire, lips pressed together in concentration. And then, before he can talk himself out of it, he squeezes his eyes shut and cuts it.

_Snap._

A single tick goes by. And a second. Nothing happens.

They both let out an enormous breath of relief. Keith hadn’t even noticed Lance’s fingers clamped around his bicep until he’s let go, dropping his head into his hand. “Oh my god,” he breathes. “Can we please never do that again.”

“Next wire,” Keith replies, shifting his weight to sit back on his feet.

Lance groans, but he obediently lifts his head and swipes his fingers back across the display to plan their next step.

It becomes a sort of process, then. Identify a wire, cut the wire, hold their breath while they wait for a tick or two and pray to whatever intergalactic being is out there that they aren’t about to be blown into pieces. Keith’s muscles ache with unreleased tension, and every few ticks he has to reach up to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead. The pressure is suffocating.

“Okay.” Lance is glaring at his screen, one finger hovering over the portion he’s just enlarged. “Okay, I think—it’s just down to these two wires right here.”

_Seventy-one ticks._

Keith shuffles over to make room for Lance as he peeks into the fray, comparing Keith’s mess of wires with the schematics. He makes a small noise of frustration, tapping again at the screen. “Which one?” Keith presses.

“I guess—” Lance hesitates.  _Sixty-seven ticks._

“Lance,” Keith urges again, and Lance runs a hand through his hair.

“Okay, I—that black one right there,” he says, closing out his display and pointing cautiously. “But—god, Keith, if I’m wrong—”

“Trust your instincts,” Keith interrupts, twisting the blade in his hand restlessly. “They’re always right.”

Lance scoffs. “Are they?”

 _“Yes,”_ Keith insists, exasperated. “How do you think we got this far?”

“Luck?”

“I’m cutting the black one,” Keith announces, leaning forward to do exactly that.

“Wait!” Lance’s hand shoots back out to clutch at Keith’s arm, his fingers digging almost painfully against his armor. “Are you sure?”

Keith turns his head just enough to lock eyes with Lance, tightening his grip on the hilt of his blade. “I’m sure if you’re sure.”

Lance’s eyes are blue, and searching, and for a moment Keith lets himself be distracted by the way the shades of color seem to shift and morph in the light, until they come together into something certain. Lance bites his lip and nods, once. “I’m sure.”

_Sixty-one ticks._

Keith cuts the wire without a second thought.

Lance’s breath hitches and Keith feels every muscle in his body go taut, both of them waiting, waiting,  _waiting—_

Nothing.

They relax.

The timer that’s stopped at exactly sixty ticks flickers, and blinks, and goes blank—and flashes back to life to start counting down from twenty ticks.

“Keith!” Lance shrieks, at the same moment that Keith lets out a string of swear words. “Look what you did!”

“Me?” Keith snaps. “You’re the one who told me to cut it!”

“You told me to trust my instincts!”

“Because I thought they’d be right!”

“Oh my god!” Lance barks out a laugh that sounds borderline hysterical, shooting to his feet and stumbling back a few steps. “That’s it. We’re dead! We’re dead, the Antheans are dead, half the planet is dead—”

Keith pushes himself up to mirror Lance, discarding his blade on the floor. “We don’t have time to panic, Lance—”

“What else is there to do!” Lance cries, arms flailing.

“Lance!”

“Keith,  _stop,”_ Lance pleads, voice shrill. “Just—stop saying my name, I can’t deal with that right now—”

“What does me saying your name have to do with anything?”

_Ten ticks._

“Because you—it just—it’s stressing me out!”

 _“That’s_ what’s stressing you out about this situation?” Keith asks incredulously.

“Keith,” Lance gasps, grabbing his shoulder, eyes wide.

Keith glances over his shoulder at the bomb, the same panic that’s been so evident in Lance’s voice swelling in his chest and rushing into his lungs when his eyes land on the countdown.

_Five ticks._

He looks back at Lance, eyes wide, brown curls sticking to his forehead, freckles dancing across his cheeks—

_Three, two—_

“Lance,” he chokes out, and then takes his face in his hands and surges forward and kisses him.

It’s awkward. Their noses bump, and Lance has to latch onto Keith’s elbows to keep them both from toppling over, and Keith sort of misses his mouth and gets the corner of it instead. But hey, if Keith is going to die today… well. At least he’ll die kissing Lance.

Lance, who is suddenly—kissing back. Lance, who almost immediately parts his lips in answer, tilting his head to fix their angle and moving his jaw in a way that makes Keith’s knees weak. Lance, whose hand is clinging to his shoulder and fingers tangling in his hair to cradle the back of his head and press him closer, closer, closer—Keith’s breath stutters, and Lance sighs into his mouth, and Keith is starting to wonder why the hell it took them this long when they both seem to remember that, hypothetically, neither of them should still be standing right now.

Their movements slow, and at last they break apart but they don’t let go of each other. Lance’s eyes remain closed for another beat, lips pink and swollen, before they open once more and Keith’s heart almost stops at the sight of them. The room is suddenly unbearably quiet, and still, as Keith tries to ground himself.

“It—” his breath catches. He swallows, cheeks burning. “It didn’t go off.”

“Guess not,” Lance responds, voice husky, eyes never leaving Keith’s.

They’re silent, for a moment that seems to stretch out into an eternity in the mere inches of space between them. Keith can’t stand it. He grips the collar of Lance’s armor and tries to breathe.

 _“Lance,”_ he whispers, and Lance sighs again and Keith’s heart trips when he drags him back in for another kiss, this one even more searing and desperate than the last like they can’t possibly get close enough to satisfy the aching relief at the fact that they’re both still alive, and here, and together.

The bomb might not have gone off, but Keith can’t help but feel like  _something_ did. Because the bomb didn’t go off, but Keith is burning, burningburningburning and hot all over like he’s going up in flames and yet all he wants is to bring himself closer to the source of them. He’s sure his heart must still be beating and his muscles probably still ache but all he can feel—all he wants to feel—is Lance.

Lance reciprocates the sentiment, hands cupping the sides of his face and sliding his fingers through his hair, each of them chasing the other every time one of them involuntarily pulls back because their bodies are trying to remind them to  _breathe._

And when Lance sighs Keith’s name, Keith swears his knees would have completely given out if Lance hadn’t already been there to steady him, because it’s all so overwhelmingly—everything is so—Lance is so overwhelming and Keith is dizzy with relief, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins and the need to be as close as he can.

At some point it becomes less desperate and more careful, each kiss growing softer, movements gentler. Their lips brush together, and Lance’s lashes flutter against his cheek and it sends shivers down Keith’s spine. And instead of chasing, they’re following, until they’ve slowed once more and what’s left is a slow, lingering kiss that Keith does his absolute best to memorize.

They pull apart. They still cling to one another, faces only an inch apart as they stare at one another. Keith realizes, belatedly, just how fast his heart is beating. Lance’s brow creases.

“How the quiznak are we gonna explain this to the team,” he mutters, and the way he says it is so genuinely concerned and out of place that Keith can’t stop the small laugh that bubbles out of his chest.

“I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”

“Clearly.”

They’re both smiling now, high off the feeling of being alive and together and suddenly Keith has never been so pleased with the outcome of a near-death experience.

Lance blinks, and then clears his throat and drops his hands to Keith’s arms. “We should—we need to get back to our Lions and try to contact the team. And, you know, assure Mr. King of Anthea Dude of his planet’s safety and all that stuff.”

“Oh.” Keith blinks back. He drops his hands to his sides and stumbles back half a step out of Lance’s grasp. “Yeah, that—we should probably do that.”

Lance waits as he bends down to retrieve his blade, sheathing it and pausing to take one last look at the bomb they’d evidently successfully defused before they both start toward the exit. “Also,” Lance starts, and Keith glances over at him. “We’re definitely talking about— _that,_ later.”

Keith feels his face flush and he quickly looks away. “Noted,” he manages.

“Good,” Lance huffs. And then, as if doing it before he can lose his nerve, he grabs Keith’s hand and twists their fingers together, holding on tightly as Keith bites his lip to suppress a smile. “Now let’s get out of here.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](https://www.thespacenico.tumblr.com)!  
> [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/thespacenico/)!  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/thespacenico)!  
> 


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